Sunday, October 16, 2016

WHO’S ABOVE THE LAW?

WHO’S ABOVE THE LAW?

Recently, the House Republicans’ continuing investigation of
Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server onprompted new subpoenas, three witnesses
taking the Fifth Amendment and one Clinton
family information technology aide explained his use of a hammer to destroy his
boss’ obsolete mobile devices.Justin
Cooper, a 15-year all-purpose employee of the Clinton family, was the only IT
specialist among four invited by the House Oversight and Government Reform
Committee to testify rather than invoke his right not to incriminate
himself.The result was new detail on
the origins of the private server in Clinton’s Chappaqua, N.Y.,
home following an FBI investigation that found “carelessness” by her but no
grounds for prosecution. Republicans said they are just getting started in
asking what they see as unanswered questions about the security and
transparency of Clinton’s
arrangement, while Democrats called the series of hearings a redundant,
politically motivated election-year “photo op.”

Asked why, as the FBI reported this month, he took a hammer
to one of Clinton’s
mobile devices, Cooper said “it was not done in any way to destroy or hide
information” but to avoid “putting it in the trash where someone could find
it.” He stressed that whenever he switched Clinton to a new mobile device, he “felt it
was good practice” to destroy the old one after all data had been transferred
and backed up.Cooper said the Clintons never discussed
with him any issues about the Federal Records Act or the Freedom of Information
Act. On the contrary, he said, he went to great lengths to fully transfer all
data from the old device to the new.On
questioning by Republicans, however, Cooper acknowledged that he did not have
security clearance, despite having access to many State Department emails in
the course of helping both Bill and Hillary Clinton. When he found some
official content on his own backup computer, he said, he turned it over to his
attorneys who relayed them to the FBI.

Cooper, who now works as a consultant for a variety of
clients but not the Clintons, also acknowledged that he was not an IT expert;
he was the “interface” with the Clintons.
The “engineering” and security of the private server were the province of Bryan Pagliano—whom
Republicans had invited as the key witness. Pagliano declined to show up at the
hearing.It was after the Clinton presidential campaign of 2008 shut down, Cooper
said, that Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin asked him to work with Pagliano,
who had bought surplus computers from the campaign, on setting up Apple iMacs
in the Clinton’s New York
and Washington homes to relay emails to Clinton’s BlackBerry.
“They had a desire to change her email address because a number of people had
that address,” he said, calling it a “matter of convenience” to add her account
to the existing, Secret Service-protected server being used by former President
Clinton.

Later, “user problems” surfaced, and Pagliano thought they
needed to expand to a “more robust” system that he helped physically install in
March 2009. The only people with email accounts on the server, Cooper said,
were Hillary Clinton, Abedin and Chelsea Clinton.Cooper said he was not around when the
server was moved to a secure room in the home after Hillary Clinton became
secretary of State. “I’ve never been in a position to be technical expert on
either the server or whether classified email was sent to secretary,” said
Cooper. He did acknowledge, when asked by Rep. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., about
the risks of hacking attacks by Russia
and China,
that this “is something to be concerned about.”In response to other lawmakers’ questions,
he said he was paid by the Clinton
family executive services contractor, and that he is paying his own attorney
fees during the investigation.

Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, opened the
hearing by saying, “Hillary Clinton as secretary of State for roughly four
years helped create one of what is reported to be one of the biggest security
breaches in the history of the State Department and it is an absolute
mess.”He said he wanted to hear from Pagliano
and two officials from Platte River Networks—the private firm that later
supervised Clinton’s
server—to learn details on how the server would have been safeguarded against
hacking when there was “no encryption, no dual authentication.” Chaffetz said
Pagliano was hired at the State Department as a GS-15 but failed to report that
he was also being paid by the Clintons.And Chaffetz wanted Platte River Networks
employees Bill Thornton and Paul Combetta to explain an email released by the
FBI that appears to express the firm’s anxiety about being asked in March 2015
to delete past Clinton
emails without a written agreement staying why—given the fact that a
congressional committee would subpoena them.

Neither employee present would speak beyond invoking, on
advice of counsel, the Fifth Amendment. Their silence and the absence of
Pagliano prompted Chaffetz to decry the way Pagliano “thumbed his nose at the
U.S. Congress.I will continue to
explore all options,” Chaffetz added. “Anyone under the illusion that I’m going
to let it go and sail off into the sunset is mistaken.”Ranking member Elijah Cummings, D-Md., said,
“Today is our third emergency hearing about Secretary Clinton’s emails in four
business days.I believe this committee
is abusing taxpayer dollars and the authority of Congress in an astonishing
onslaught of political attacks to damage Secretary Clinton’s campaign for
president.” Stressing that the FBI had already concluded a professional
investigation that found no criminal liability, Cummings said, “The point of
today’s hearing is to investigate baseless Republican accusations that
Secretary Clinton or her aides ordered the destruction of emails to conceal
them from investigators.” He argued for having Pagliano, whom the Justice
Department granted immunity, testify in an executive session.

Republicans made it plain that the issue isn’t fading soon.
Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, the chairman of the Science, Space and Technology
Committee who was permitted to attend and pose questions, said he had just
issued three more subpoenas to private IT firms working on the Clinton server.
Their responses, he said, suggest “obstruction of justice” and “continues a Clinton habit of secrecy,
not transparency.”In gaveling the
hearing to a close, Chaffetz announced it was being recessed to a later
date.

What I deduced from this is that, even when
a Congressional subpoena is issued, you don’t have to show up, if you work for
the right people.If you or I refused to
show up when subpoenaed by a lower court, you can bet they would issue a bench
warrant and we’d go straight to jail, not passing GO and not getting two
hundred dollars either!